A Tale of Two Oscar-Winning Actresses: Why Has Jennifer Lawrence Become a Media Darling by Breaking All the Rules, While Well-Behaved Anne Hathaway Is Getting Flack?

For centuries, public-relations historians will recount how the 2013 awards season produced two Oscar-winning actresses, who, despite being voted best in their field by their colleagues in the Academy, were not both treated the best by the press. Defying conventional Hollywood wisdom, Jennifer Lawrence has become a media darling by showing seemingly little interest in modifying herself for the media, discussing in interviews everything from being “uneducated” to her deep-seated desire to be so unburdened by work that she does not have to change her pants for days on end. She has reminisced about a cheese steak she housed before her first Oscars, ate a mailbox-size burrito mid–Vanity Fair interview, and salivated over McDonald’s French fries on this weekend’s red carpet. When she wasn’t offering generous sound bites, the 22-year-old further endeared herself to fans by insulting Zach Galifianakis with ease on his Funny or Die series, adorably spazzing out over meeting Jack Nicholson while taping an ABC segment, and, most memorably, tripping on her way to collect her best-actress Oscar for Silver Linings Playbook—and then calling attention to it during a self-effacing acceptance-speech aside. Immediately after, she even joked around with reporters during a formal press conference, after confessing that she had just taken a shot backstage.

If Jennifer Lawrence created the litmus test for likeability this season, Anne Hathaway has for some reason lowered the curve. In any other awards run-up, her respectfully delivered acceptance speeches and air of earnestness may have come across as charming and dignified. But, perhaps in contrast with Lawrence’s candidness, the once widely beloved Hathaway has somehow struck the wrong chord in the media. While certain Web sites compiled “J. Law's [most] sparkly quotes,” press outlets and the Internet at large piled onto Hathaway—often for her acceptance speeches, which because of her heart-wrenching work as Fantine in Les Misérables, occurred often. (After the BAFTAs, she was criticized for thanking the novel's author, Victor Hugo, in an acceptance speech that impatient viewers deemed too long to begin with. After the Golden Globes, she was panned for sweetly taking the microphone during the movie’s best-musical-or-comedy win so that she could thank people whom she had forgotten on her first trip to the podium.) Some outlets scrutinized the 30-year-old actress with scientific precision—The Huffington Post titled one piece, “How Annoying Is Anne Hathaway: A Scientific Inquiry,” while NewNowNext, a site owned by MTV, presented a retrospective of her “Awful Acceptance Speeches: An Annoying Look Back.”

By the time Hathaway—who never receives negative press for bad behavior on-set or offending colleagues—had collected her supporting-actress Academy Award for Les Misérables at Sunday’s ceremony, the joyous moment was interrupted backstage. In the press room, where later that evening Nicholson would bum-rush an interview to fawn over Lawrence, reporters segued their congratulations into an inquiry about Hathaway's feelings on the public criticism. After taking a second to collect herself, the poised actress formed a thoughtful, upbeat response: “It does get to me. . .but you have to remember in life that there’s a positive to every negative and a negative to every positive . . . The miracle of the universe is that, as far as they know, there’s 51 percent matter versus 49 percent anti-matter—things tip in the scale of the positive. So that is what I focus on.” The clip, which includes the actress complimenting a journalist's eyelashes and humbly discussing her Oscar-winning performance:

Although the Oscars signaled the conclusion of awards season, the media focus appears not to have tipped yet for Hathaway. Recently, the New York Daily Newswondered “Why is Anne Hathaway so unlikeable?” and dubbed her detractors “Hathahaters,” while CNN attempted to explain the phenomenon via a post called “Why You Love to Hate Anne Hathaway.”

This week, paparazzi photos showed she and Lawrence back in streetwear after their respective Oscar wins, underscoring the difference in the public personas. One set of pictures showed Hathaway heading to a healthful brunch in floral maxi-dress, looking put together. A slew of photos showing a decidedly un-coiffed Lawrence relaxing in sweats while on vacation—alternately alone, with a friend, or with a bottle of red wine and a “funny cigarette”—earned headlines like, “Jennifer Lawrence Without Makeup: Actress Fresh-Faced, Relaxed in Hawaii.”

As Oscar obsession winds down, there is more favoring/disfavoring ammunition for each actress’s respective corner. It has since surfaced that Lawrence is reveling in her role as amateur matchmaker to Silver Linings Playbook co-star Bradley Cooper, whom she considers a “brother.” Bons mots from the Oscars’ red carpet continue to be cast endearingly—including Lawrence’s accounts of her undying obsession with Al Roker, her unembarrassed love for Photoshop, and the fact that she keeps Laffy Taffy and Baby Ruths in her purse. Meanwhile, the aforementioned negative post-Oscars pieces about Hathaway are now joined by an Us Weekly post about a reported “fit” that Hathaway is said to have had during a cast rehearsal of the Les Mis Oscar tribute.

Hathaway has at minimum three outspoken supporters, however. The New Yorker's Sasha Weiss wrote a compelling piece “In Defense of the Happy Girl.” Lena Dunham recently backed the actress on Twitter, telling her followers, “Ladies: Anne Hathaway is a feminist and she has amazing teeth. Let’s save our bad attitudes for the ones who aren’t advancing the cause.” And during a spontaneous rant on Thursday, Anderson Cooper defended theLes Misérablesstar to his daytime-talk-show audience, saying, “She’s incredibly talented. She seems like a lovely person. I think she’s been through a lot. And you know what . . . people have all these judgments about her, they don’t know what she’s really like.” The host even went so far as to plant a seed of doubt about Lawrence’s endearing clumsiness. When asked about her Academy Award trip Cooper cracked, “You don’t think that fall was rehearsed?”

Perhaps, now that awards season is over, the tide will begin to turn for Hathaway—Hollywood's most simultaneously prized and panned actress.